Office Copying Equipment (OCE) is no diamond in the rough when it comes to its approach to service. The dealership, which has been serving customers for nearly 42 years, may not have written the book on quality service, but they’ve certainly contributed their fair share of chapters.
OCE is a Sharp dealership serving more than 5,000 customers throughout Milwaukee, Racine, Kenosha, Walworth, Waukesha, Ozaukee, and Washington counties in southeast Wisconsin. The dealership excels at client consultations, MFP/software integration, network design and implementation, and application support and training. Indeed, OCE truly fits the profile of a progressive office technology dealership.
An integral component of OCE’s business model, as well as a key differentiator in the market, is a strong focus on customer support and service. As far as service goes, OCE is one of the best in the nation. Its technicians work exclusively on Sharp products. They receive comprehensive Sharp factory authorized training and certification through the 3T (Train-The-Trainer) Service Certification program. Even though much of the training is done online lately, they’re still offered hands on training at OCE headquarters even when it’s not provided by Sharp. In this instance, a couple of techs at a time will come in and work on one of the devices they learned about in the online training.
BEI Services’ Dan Fink (left) with Tom Sett (center), president and owner and Pete Humphrey (right), service manager of Office Copying Equipment with their Diamond Award.
Add to that an incentive-based technician program designed to extend customers’ page output between service calls and it’s easy to understand why OCE is being honored this month with a BEI Services/ENX magazine Service Excellence Award in the Diamond category.
“These guys are knocking it out of the park,” says BEI Services Dan Fink. They’re ranked number four out of the 176 dealers in the OTSA program and 10 of their 16 technicians are in one of the top two award positions—either Platinum or Diamond.
OCE’s numbers are truly impressive. How about 7 percent Hold for Parts, a figure that’s held steady for the past six months? Call Backs are at 29 percent while First Call Effectiveness (FCE) is a solid 64 percent. Those are numbers that many dealerships can only dream of achieving.
While we’re on the topic of service, something else that makes OCE unique is its parts delivery team, which is available to service technicians in the event a part is not in a technician’s car stock. Technicians are pretty good on their own at keeping the necessary parts in their cars, but this added component ensures that OCE’s first call effectiveness remains as high as it is.
OCE’s origins date back to 1974 and its relationship with Sharp to 1975 when it became Wisconsin’s first authorized Sharp dealer. It’s been a single-line Sharp dealer ever since. Is that exclusivity an asset when it comes to service?
“Absolutely,” responds Pete Humphrey, service manager. “It’s a tremendous advantage for our technicians. We can have a much larger inventory of parts and supplies for our equipment because we don’t need parts and supplies for multiple lines. By and large the way the Sharp products are built, it’s similar from machine to machine so my guys are really Sharp specialists.” No cross training is necessary.
That focus on a single line makes things easier, but there’s got to be other reasons why OCE excels in the service arena.
“We take care of our guys so we have a stable staff; they know how to take care of the equipment, they know our customers, and they’re professionals,” states Humphrey.
Having the appropriate service data at their fingertips is another asset and that information has been available to OCE ever since the dealership partnered with BEI Services back in 2005.
“It was a way to control the spiraling cost of parts,” explains Humphrey when asked why the dealership took on BEI. “With any new plan you’re skeptical since you have to invest time and effort to make it go, but this was the way for the technicians to manage their parts usage.”
And it was a better way compared to previously when they might just put in as many parts as they wanted until the problem was solved and then walk away. Not anymore.
“What we wanted to do was make an accurate diagnosis and install the correct item or items and not be putting in something that’s not necessary,” notes Humphrey. “What we got is exactly what we wanted; the techs are out there thinking about this and are invested in the success of the company because of the BEI Tech Comp program.”
“This program makes them aware of how big their bonus check is going to be by selecting the right part to put in, or eliminating the part they put in that didn’t fix it, and make sure they’re just using the proper parts to fix a piece of equipment,” observes OCE’s owner and president Tom Sett. “This was the first program I saw in the service industry that allowed us to have equal and fair compensation for the technicians that would accomplish what I was looking for—to increase profitability in the service department on the P&L. BEI worked on this and came up with a fabulous program and the results have been unbelievable.”
The dealership began seeing improvements within four to six months.
“As it became part of the culture, it improved and improved and improved for several years,” says Humphrey.
Although there’s still room for improvement, Humphrey concedes it’s not like OCE is going to see the kind of improvements it saw early on.
“We’ve achieved our optimum cost savings in that regard and it’s understood by the techs this is how it’s going to work and that they are part of the success of the company,” adds Humphrey.
The ability to fix equipment right the first time, having the appropriate parts, and reducing call backs is something that OCE’s sales reps aren’t shy about sharing with customers and prospects.
“Our sales people bring this up when talking about copying equipment and a big part of it is our after sale service and IT support,” states Sett. “We really talk about the BEI program to underscore the benefit of going with Office Copying Equipment because we’re going to eliminate the dreaded call backs.”
Of course sales reps talk about the tenure of OCE’s techs too, with 15 of them being with the company an excess of 15 years each.
“We have the experience and we’re exclusively with Sharp so there’s no cross training,” says Sett. “We make that part of our portfolio as to why you should buy from Office Copying Equipment. This is one of the big reasons. Obviously, the Sharp equipment is good equipment, but the after sale is what people are concerned with—what happens if it breaks, do you have the parts, how quickly will you get there, and how many shots are you going to have before you fix it right. We tie into that; we don’t just say, ‘We’re not going to have call backs and we do a good job,’ but we have the BEI program that allows us to do that and we have an award that proves we are as good as we say we are.”
Let’s not ignore the fact either that OCE’s techs have embraced the program, particularly the bonus checks they receive at the end of the month.
“When they’re extending copies between calls, which is what I like to see as an owner and what the end user likes to see, rather than the proverbial pat on the back and see you Monday and do it again, these guys get a bonus check at the end of the month and that’s one of the reasons they stay with Office Copying Equipment,” says Sett. “If we can keep that experience and tenure here we have a nice story to talk about here in Milwaukee on why you should go with OCE and not the competition.”
Humphrey posts the results monthly, but that’s not always fast enough for some of his techs who are often eager to see how they’re doing. It can get competitive around OCE when it’s time for those numbers to go up for all to see.
Where can OCE improve?
“These guys are all professionals and they know the deal, and they know how to fix the equipment,” says Humphrey. “We always want to learn and grow and technology is tough to keep up with. Where I’d like to improve is on the networking side. We have our own IT department that is working full time with our customers to take care of IT issues, and I’d like to get some of my techs doing more of that. We’re able to handle what we need at this time and we’re doing well. We need to stay the course and continue to grow with the industry as it changes.”
Both Humphrey and Sett would recommend the program without hesitation to any dealership looking to boost its service performance.
“The program has done everything and more than was promised,” says Humphrey. “The ability to access the data across the nation and beyond for all of these models and have real live data, not just classroom solutions data for costs and staffs, and the amount of information BEI collects and makes available is tremendous.”
“It impacts the P&L which is what ownership is concerned with,” adds Sett. “I would definitely recommend the program to other dealerships. We’re trying to figure out the meter charge programs, and having a national average on CPC between calls allows us to price more aggressively. BEI allows you to gather this information both on a local and national basis and come up with a good decision-making process on how low you can go and still make money, especially if you get involved in a competitive situation in maybe a non-profit or a multiple machine deal, where everybody gets aggressive on that meter charge program. It also helps keep your service techs at home so you don’t lose them to the competition. That tenure and experience is one of the biggest things that make a service department successful, and that’s what leads a dealership to be successful.”
Office Copying Equipment
Milwaukee, WI
www.oceltd.com
Owner/President: Tom Sett
Service Manager: Peter Humphrey
Number of Service Techs: 16
Number of Customers Serviced: 5,000
Lines Carried: Sharp
Why They Stand Out:
Call Backs – 29%
Hold for Parts – 7%
FCE – 64%
